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Modding my 4870 Bios - Some Questions

Risco

Risco

New Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2008
Messages
31 (0.01/day)
System Specs
Video Card(s) HD 4870 512mb
Ok, the only reason I want to mod my bios is because the damn fan keeps ramping between 900rpm and 1400rpm while in windows. I am not sure if this is an ATI drive issue, or something that needs to be rectified by bios.

So I did some testing and tried various ways. I copied the ASUS top bios, but that is too damn loud in 2D. So I then tried messing with the TMIN and duty cycle min. My first attempt I set TMIN to 70 and my idle temps dropped to 76C from 80C. However the fan would go totally nuts during gaming, especially when a game is paused in 3D.

Then I read up about tslope, but this seems not be editiable? Any reason why? Anyway I tried another attempt, however this time using the latest rivatuner to try out my mods before flashing. I set the duty cycle to 2% and TMIN to 60%. This was ok, but still an insane amount of ramping while in 3D. I would rather use the on die chip, as messing with lookup table does not seem to be successful for me.

So any suggestions, is there a way to stop the fan ramping up and down in 2D or is this a CCC bug? Even with my mods; although it works somewhat, it still ramps. The only thing is it does not sound as bad as the fan speed starts off at a higher default. It still bloody ramps between 1100-1400rpm grr!

I look forward to your replies.
 
Have you tried Rivatuner yet? It works very well, and you can set a fan profile in it to increase the fan speed when the card reaches a certain temperature, or you can just lock the fan at a higher (noise tolerable) speed.
 
erocker said:
Have you tried Rivatuner yet? It works very well, and you can set a fan profile in it to increase the fan speed when the card reaches a certain temperature, or you can just lock the fan at a higher (noise tolerable) speed.
Click to expand...

Yeah as mentioned above :P I am looking at a bios mod as it means less crap I need to install.
 
Would rather get a bit more understanding of the tmin setting though?
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Same here, that Asus Top bios fan profile is rubbish, its way 2 loud.
 
I don't know what kind of cooler you guys have..but the asus top profile on the reference cooler is dead silent for me.
 
I dont know, 1000 to 1200 rpm idle against the ASUS top 1800 to 1900 idle, and 1800 to 1900rpm under load against the Asus Top 2900 rpm. Taking into account I have 2 cards even doubles the sound generated.

I am using the ATI cooling that comes as stock, no aftermarked job.

I dont think anything over 1900 rpm can be considered quite, maybe other things are dampening your sound generated? I have a quite PC all I like to hear is my waterpump, I am watercooled so no noisy fans, so any noise generated by the gpu stand out like dogs balls to me..
 
I dont know what your're doing but i found a sweet spot by reducing the Tmax AND Tmin by 10. Slope remains the same.

Before adjustments i had

80C idle
85-90 load

After

60C idle @ around a silent 27% fan speed

68C load@ not sure about fan speed but i hear it ramp up a little while gaming but its not too loud

So at these settings the card is silent and cooler at idle, and ramps up while gaming.

If you change the Tmin and Tmax anymore than 10 it will be cooler but you can hear the fan at idle so changing it by 10 seems perfect for me.

My stock Tmax was 101 and Tmin was 58 so i went Tmax91 and Tmin 48 and its great.
 
buggalugs said:
I dont know what your're doing but i found a sweet spot by reducing the Tmax AND Tmin by 10. Slope remains the same.

Before adjustments i had

80C idle
85-90 load

After

60C idle @ around a silent 27% fan speed

68C load@ not sure about fan speed but i hear it ramp up a little while gaming but its not too loud

So at these settings the card is silent and cooler at idle, and ramps up while gaming.

If you change the Tmin and Tmax anymore than 10 it will be cooler but you can hear the fan at idle so changing it by 10 seems perfect for me.

My stock Tmax was 101 and Tmin was 58 so i went Tmax91 and Tmin 48 and its great.
Click to expand...

For some reason radeon bios editor messes up the tslope. Everytime I mod a bios I end up with a crazy speed fan when gaming. In rivatuner I can set the tslope independent but not in RBE?
 
Risco said:
For some reason radeon bios editor messes up the tslope. Everytime I mod a bios I end up with a crazy speed fan when gaming. In rivatuner I can set the tslope independent but not in RBE?
Click to expand...

The tslope in RBE is calculated by a formule so you will get a correct tslope. If you could set this by hand, the fan will not operate how it was ment to be by ATI.

If you post a screenshot of the fan settings in rbe we can help you beter
 
VuurVOS said:
The tslope in RBE is calculated by a formule so you will get a correct tslope. If you could set this by hand, the fan will not operate how it was ment to be by ATI.

If you post a screenshot of the fan settings in rbe we can help you beter
Click to expand...

Ok will get a pic up in a bit, but for reference rivatuner allows independent tslope adjustments. There should be an override available as it is making it hell for me setting up stuff in rivatuner, testing then flashing only to find the damn card is too noisy.

In all honesty I am not really bothered about heat, as it is exhausted. What I want to do is stop the fan ramping up and down every freaking minute when idle. Like for 2D I want it to stay around 1100rpm not 900-1400rpm which is what it does now. :shadedshu

I tried the fan spin up bug fix and changed nothing else on the default bios, but all that did was make my fans go super loud in windows. really at a loss here as to why modding is not doing as I want, but rather as it wants.
 
I think you have a bios in your card with a high "Duty Cycle Min".

EDIT: One tip, remove first all software which can controll the fan and read the temperatures (ATI Tray Tools, Rivatuner, CCC xml hack, GPU-Z).
GPU-Z gives me without the fan fix a fan spin up loop at 48 degrees. I can't believe the fan fix cause your noise problem. It only removes unwanted fan spin ups.
 
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VuurVOS said:
I think you have a bios in your card with a high "Duty Cycle Min".

EDIT: One tip, remove first all software which can controll the fan and read the temperatures (ATI Tray Tools, Rivatuner, CCC xml hack, GPU-Z).
GPU-Z gives me without the fan fix a fan spin up loop at 48 degrees. I can't believe the fan fix cause your noise problem. It only removes unwanted fan spin ups.
Click to expand...

I checked and duty cycle min is at 0%? I really do not want to remove rivatuner, as I need the D3DOverrider :(

And yeah, I dont understand how just clicking fan fix borks the whole thing.
 
Risco said:
I checked and duty cycle min is at 0%? I really do not want to remove rivatuner, as I need the D3DOverrider :(

And yeah, I dont understand how just clicking fan fix borks the whole thing.
Click to expand...
Where is the screenshot we are waiting for :rolleyes:

You can also use the look up table for the fan.

Temp Fanspeed (its a shame they doesn't have a table function on these forums)
0----25%
65---27%
70---30%
75---34%
80---39%
85---45%
90---90%
100--100%
 
Ya the Tslope is calculated according to Tmax and Tmin, it cant work independant of....

I dont know what the problem is but make sure to uninstall drivers when flashing the card, also use the unmodified bios to modify the bios. That is, dont modify an already modified one.

Ya the screenshot might help.
 
VuurVOS said:
Where is the screenshot we are waiting for :rolleyes:

You can also use the look up table for the fan.

Temp Fanspeed (its a shame they doesn't have a table function on these forums)
0----25%
65---27%
70---30%
75---34%
80---39%
85---45%
90---90%
100--100%
Click to expand...

Well I have about 15 different forums I frequent lol, so takes me a bit of time to post in all of them ;)

What part of the picture do you want?
 
I want to see your fan settings in RBE
 
You should be able to just change 101 to 91 and 58 to 48 (Tslope should still be 37), save and flash your card. (remove drivers and rivatuner etc before flashing)
 
buggalugs said:
You should be able to just change 101 to 91 and 58 to 48 (Tslope should still be 37), save and flash your card. (remove drivers and rivatuner etc before flashing)
Click to expand...

Mmm, I never uninstalled the drivers when flashing is that bad? :banghead: Vuurvos thanks for your help again but I am trying to avoid the software approach.
 
Risco said:
Mmm, I never uninstalled the drivers when flashing is that bad? :banghead: Vuurvos thanks for your help again but I am trying to avoid the software approach.
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Uninstalling drivers is not needed. I never had any problems with it.

Why avoiding the software approach if you will keep your warrenty. A not orginal bios on your graphics card will void your warrenty.
 
VuurVOS said:
Uninstalling drivers is not needed. I never had any problems with it.

Why avoiding the software approach if you will keep your warrenty. A not orginal bios on your graphics card will void your warrenty.
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True on the warranty but only if it dies with the modded bios :p I can just download the original sapphire bios from here worst case scenario.
 
Just got some more info about TMAX, apparently the TMAX in RBE is right per se, but not using the same one as Rivatuner.

Where do I request this option is fully exposed in the next release?

Both rivatuner and RBE are correct, i think.
RBE let you choose the temperature where, following a ramp, the fan duty-cycle will be 100 %. RBE calls this temperature Tmax, but in fact this Tmax is not available in the controller, because the control ramp is specified by Tslope. RBE recompute itself Tslope.
There's another Tmax in the fan controller, the one you see in Rivatuner. You're unable to see this value in RBE.
This is just my opinion.
Click to expand...
 
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